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MANILA, Philippines – A famous quote read: “No parent should bury a child.” In the case of the political detainee Queen Mae Nasino, this is true, as Kapatid, a human rights group, said police had “kidnapped every minute” of baby River’s burial.
On early Friday morning, more than 20 policemen already surrounded La Funeraria Rey in Pandacan, Manila, where baby River’s wake was held for almost a week.
Aside from the police officers on foot, a SWAT team truck was also on standby and a fire truck. Only family members were allowed inside.
SWAT members are also stationed outside before Baby River’s burial @inquirerdotnet pic.twitter.com/rmef4A04kd
– tetch torres-tupas (@ T2TupasINQ) October 16, 2020
A commotion ensued after Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim was barred from entering the funeral home. Lim is a co-petitioner for Marites, the mother of Reina Lim in the case before the Supreme Court seeking the temporary release of high-risk COVID-19 political detainees.
LOOK: Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim was initially banned from the funeral home. Finally he was allowed to enter. Kapatid Video pic.twitter.com/Ks2XAbRNV8
– tetch torres-tupas (@ T2TupasINQ) October 16, 2020
“They (BJMP and the police) put on a show of themselves. Photos and videos don’t lie. They should be ashamed of what they did because they have no right to intervene, ”Lim said.
“Above all, they have no right to take the remains of the family. That act was disrespectful. All we ask is 3 hours for Reina Mae Nasino to cry peacefully, free of anguish. But they disrespected the family’s right to cry, “he added.
Kapatid said the hearse carrying baby River sped away, leaving the family and their followers outside the funeral home.
The original plan was for the hearse to pass through the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, where they were supposed to advocate for Nasino’s temporary release before going to the North Cemetery, the final resting place of the Emmanuel River.
However, the hearse went straight to the cemetery. Upon the arrival of Nasino, his lawyers and his mother, Marites begged the police and jail officials to remove the handcuffs. Even the priest who officiated the mass also asked his escorts to remove his handcuffs so that he could hug the coffin for the last time.
LOOK: The hearse that transports Baby River in the Manila North cemetery while the police line up outside. @inquirerdotnet pic.twitter.com/JLS3kd1Fh3
– tetch torres-tupas (@ T2TupasINQ) October 16, 2020
LOOK: Lawyers and Marites, Reina Mae’s mother asks that her handcuffs be removed so she can hug her daughter. @inquirerdotnet Kapatid Video pic.twitter.com/1bvYnVFs2D
– tetch torres-tupas (@ T2TupasINQ) October 16, 2020
The prison guards did not move.
Nasino couldn’t hug his son. He made his last goodbye by touching the glass of baby River’s coffin. She couldn’t even wipe her tears away while being heavily dressed in PPE, rubber gloves as well as being handcuffed.
“They will release me more firmly. We will be released more firmly. We are not alone, our pain is short-lived, but we will get up, ”he said.
(Once I am free, I will be much stronger. We will all be much stronger once we are released. We are not alone. Our pain is temporary, but we will survive this).
LOOK: Queen Mae Nasino says goodbye to her three-month-old son. @inquirerdotnet Kapatid Video pic.twitter.com/uSWbq9vfWT
– tetch torres-tupas (@ T2TupasINQ) October 16, 2020
Marites Asis, the baby’s grandmother, said: I have no opponent. You’re too much. Not only are we poor and we don’t have big names (I’m not fighting anyone. This is too much just because we’re poor and we don’t have big names).
This is not the first time a detainee has been granted a license. Other prominent former government officials were allowed to attend a daughter’s wedding despite facing multiple murder charges, spent Christmas at home despite facing a looting and corruption case, visited mother on her birthday despite from facing a looting case and attended a daughter’s graduation.
The undersecretary of the Interior and Local Government, Epimaco Densing, said that the security agreement “is not excessive.”
The chief inspector of the prison, Xavier Solda, spokesman for the Office of Penitentiary Administration and Penology, said that 43 police officers and prisons had been deployed “considering the size of the area.”
He said that those deployed came from different prison units and “were deployed in compliance with court orders to assure the PDL (person deprived of liberty) Nasino and guarantee that there would be no adverse incidents.”
Nasino, a poor urban organizer, was arrested in November last year in a large-scale joint police operation in Manila and Cebu against suspected members of the communist group pursuant to a search warrant issued by a Quezon City judge. Nasino was one month pregnant when she was arrested.
Along with 21 other elderly and sick inmates, he filed a petition with the Supreme Court requesting their immediate release because they are at increased risk of contracting COVID-19.
In July, the higher court announced that the petition is considered a request for bail and to pass the buck to the lower courts to act on the offer of temporary release. However, a copy of the petition was only available to the parties in the same week that baby River died last week.
Meanwhile, the baby was forcibly separated from his mother on August 13 despite pleas that it is unhealthy to separate a nursing baby from its mother. A month later, baby River began to get sick. She was transferred to the Philippine General Hospital from the Manila Medical Center after showing signs of COVID-19. The test came back negative, but her lungs failed and stopped responding to treatments.
On October 9, River’s doctor recommended that his family give the mother the opportunity to see her baby alive one last time. An urgent motion was made. That same day, the baby died at exactly 8:50 pm.
The urgent motion was amended to ask the court to allow the mother to mourn her daughter properly. After a hearing on Tuesday, he was given three days in a row until burial.
However, the court amended the order on Wednesday after the BJMP sent a letter informing the court that it lacked the human resources to escort Nasino.
The Integrated Bar of the Philippines through its national president Atty. Domingo Egon Cayosa asked: Why can’t our justice system safeguard the needs and rights of an innocent child to breastfeed and a better chance of survival? Why don’t our prisons have adequate facilities to attend to the needs and rights of detained children and women duly recognized by national and international law? Why does it take so long to respect, protect and fulfill human rights? Isn’t there a double standard when “older” detainees are allowed similar, even greater, privileges? Can’t we have justice with compassion?
“Babies have rights and we have a duty to take care of them. May our humanity rise above our personal comforts or the privileges of power, ”Cayosa said. [ac]
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